for a bit, until one or the other of us looked aside. Too much hovered unspoken between us.
In a horribly short time he was ready to leave. He shouldered his pack and took up a stave from beside the door. I stood staring at him, thinking how odd he appeared thus: Burrich the horseman, afoot. The early summer sunlight spilling in the open door showed me a man at the end of his middle years, the white streak of hair that marked his scar foretelling the grey that had already begun to show in his beard. He was strong and fit, but his youth was unquestionably behind him. The days of his full strength he had spent watching over me.
‘Well,’ he said gruffly. ‘Farewell, Fitz. And good luck to you.’
‘Good luck to you, Burrich.’ I crossed the room quickly, and embraced him before he could step back.
He hugged me back, a quick squeeze that nearly cracked my ribs, and then pushed my hair back from my face. ‘Go comb your hair. You look like a wild man.’ He almost managed a smile. He turned from me and strode away. I stood watching him go. I thought he would not look back, but on the far side of the pasture, he turned and lifted his hand. I raised mine in return. Then he was gone, swallowed into the woods. I sat for a time on the step, considering the place where I had last seen him. If I kept to my plan, it might be years before I saw him again. If I saw him again. Since I was six years old, he had always been a factor in my life. I had always been able to count on his strength, even when I didn’t want it. Now he was gone. Like Chade, like Molly, like Verity, like Patience.
I thought of all I had said to him the night before and shuddered with shame. It had been necessary, I told myself. I had meant to drive him away. But far too much of it had erupted from ancient resentments that had festered long inside me. I had not meant to speak of such things. I had intended to drive him away, not cut him to the bone. Like Molly, he would carry off the doubts I had driven into him. And by savaging Burrich’s pride, I had destroyed what little respect Chade had still held for me. I suppose some childish part of myself had been hoping that someday I could come back to them, that someday we would share our lives again. I knew now we would not. ‘It’s over,’ I told myself quietly. ‘That life is over, let it go.’
I was free of both of them now. Free of their limitations on me, free of their ideas of honour and duty. Freed of their expectations. I’d never again have to look either of them in the eyes and account for what I had done. Free to do the only thing I had the heart or the courage left to do, the only thing I could do to lay my old life to rest behind me.
I would kill Regal.
It only seemed fair. He had killed me first. The spectre of the promise I had made to King Shrewd, that I would never harm one of his own, rose briefly to haunt me. I laid it to rest by reminding myself that Regal had killed the man who had made that promise, as well as the man I had given it to. That Fitz no longer existed. I would never again stand before old King Shrewd and report the result of a mission, I would not stand as King’s Man to loan strength to Verity. Lady Patience would never harry me with a dozen trivial errands that were of the utmost importance to her. She mourned me as dead. And Molly. Tears stung my eyes as I measured my pain. She had left me before Regal had killed me, but for that loss, too, I held him responsible. If I had nothing else out of this crust of life Burrich and Chade had salvaged for me, I would have revenge. I promised myself that Regal would look at me as he died, and know that I killed him. This would be no quiet assassination, no silent venture of anonymous poison. I would deliver death to Regal myself. I wished to strike like a single arrow, like a thrown knife, going straight to my target unhampered by fears for those around me. If I failed, well, I was already dead in every way that mattered to me. It would hurt no one that I had tried. If I died killing Regal, it would be worth it. I would guard my own life only until I had taken Regal’s. Whatever happened after that did not matter.
Nighteyes stirred, disturbed by some inkling of my thoughts.
Have you ever considered what it would do to me if you died? Nighteyes asked me.
I shut my eyes tightly for an instant. But I had considered it. What would it do to us if I lived as prey?
Nighteyes understood. We are hunters. Neither of us was born to be prey.
I cannot be a hunter if I am always waiting to be prey. And so I must hunt him before he can hunt me.
He accepted my plans too calmly. I tried to make him understand all I intended to do. I did not wish him simply to follow me blindly.
I’m going to kill Regal. And his coterie. I’m going to kill all of them, for all they did to me, and all they took from me.
Regal? There is meat we cannot eat. I do not understand the hunting of men.
I took my image of Regal and combined it with his images of the animal trader who had caged him when he was a cub and beat him with a brass-bound club.
Nighteyes considered that. Once I got away from him, I was smart enough to stay away from him. To hunt that one is as wise as to go hunting a porcupine.
I cannot leave this alone, Nighteyes.
I understand. I am the same about porcupines.
And so he perceived my vendetta with Regal as equivalent to his weakness for porcupines. I found myself accepting my stated goals with less equanimity. Having stated them, I could not imagine turning aside for anything else. My words from the night before came back to rebuke me. What had happened to all my fine speeches to Burrich, about living a life for myself? Well, I hedged, and perhaps I would, if I survived tying up these loose ends. It was not that I could not live my own life. It was that I could not stomach the idea of Regal going about thinking he had defeated me, yes, and stolen the throne from Verity. Revenge, plain and simple, I told myself. If I was ever going to put the fear and shame behind me, I had to do this.
You can come in now, I offered.
Why would I want to?
I did not have to turn and see that Nighteyes had already come down to the hut. He came to sit beside me, then peered into the hut.
Phew! You fill your den with such stinks, no wonder your nose works so poorly.
He crept into the hut cautiously and began a prowling tour of the interior. I sat on the doorstep, watching him. It had been a time since I had looked at him as anything other than an extension of myself. He was full grown now, and at the peak of his strength. Another might say he was a grey wolf. To me, he was every colour a wolf could be, dark-eyed, dark-muzzled, buff at the base of his ears and throat, his coat peppered with stiff, black guard-hairs, especially on his shoulders and the flat of his rump. His feet were huge, and spread even wider when he ran over crusted snow. He had a tail that was more expressive than many a woman’s face, and teeth and jaws that could easily crack a deer’s leg bones. He moved with that economy of strength that perfectly healthy animals have. Just watching him salved my heart. When his curiosity was mostly satisfied, he came to sit beside me. After a few moments, he stretched out in the sun and closed his eyes. Keep watch?
‘I’ll watch over you,’ I assured him. His ears twitched at my spoken words. Then he sank into a sun-soaked sleep.
I rose quietly and went inside the hut. It took a remarkably short time for me to take stock of my possessions. Two blankets and a cloak. I had a change of clothes, warm woolly things ill-suited to summer travel. A brush. A knife and whetstone. Flint firestone. A sling. Several small cured hides from game we had taken. Sinew thread. A hand-axe. A small kettle and several spoons. The last were the recent work of Burrich’s
